Second place helps Chase standings positions (not that he's looking)

SONOMA, Calif. — After crashing early in last week's Sprint Cup race at Michigan, Jeff Gordon had to be wondering what was going to go wrong Sunday at Sonoma Raceway.

Gordon has had a season of ups and downs, keeping him out of the top 10 in the Sprint Cup standings. It appeared the road course race at Sonoma was going to bring another series of trials and tribulations.

With rain headed for the track early in the race, Gordon went to pit road on Lap 25. Just as he did, NASCAR threw a caution flag for rain and penalized Gordon for pitting when the lane was closed.

That was just Gordon's luck.

"We were in the top 10 and the rain was coming in and out and we were going to try to make a three-stop race out of it and try to keep fresher tires," Gordon said. "But we were trying to beat that caution and just missed it by a split second. Right as I committed to come to pit road, I saw the red light come up, and I knew that that was going to cost us a lot.

Gordon, who has five career wins at Sonoma, dropped to 35th in the field after the penalty, but steadily worked his way back through the field to lead four laps. He was in position to make a charge to the front at the end and wound up finishing second, his best finish of the season and his fourth top-five.

"Luckily we had a fast racecar and stayed with out pit strategy and things went our way," Gordon said.

"There was a bunch of wrecks that happened right in front of me that I was able to avoid, and we just had a really good racecar and were able to drive up through (there). That part was a lot of fun."

Gordon has six finishes of 20th or worse this season, including four in the 30s. His races included all sorts of problems, including three wrecks.

He says he learned from those setbacks and others throughout his long career.

"The thing is, unless you're eliminated from competition, you never stop trying," Gordon said. "You know, over the years, I've had a lot of success but I've also had my failures as well, and you learn from both of them. Sometimes you learn from your failures more than you do your successes.

"While the successes help build confidence and the failures break the confidence down, I think one of the things that me and this team are good at is leaving that behind and going and starting clean at the next race and just focus on that race. And that's what we did there."

Gordon's focus now must be on climbing into the top 10 in points and putting himself in position to make the Chase. He gained three spots, to 13th, with his runner-up finish. He had to rally last season to earn a wild card into the Chase.

"One of the things that we've learned but we need to do more of, me personally, is stop looking at the points because it seems like every time we get close to the top 10 and I start going, 'Ooh, we're close to the top 10, we can make it into the top 10,' something happens," Gordon said.

"I'm going to stop thinking about the points and start focusing on … putting good finishes out there. We need to stop leaving the racetrack and going, 'Where are we, what do we have to do next week.' We're just going to go and push hard and perform and try to put more finishes like this together.

"If we live up to our potential and we don't get caught up in some of these silly things that we have been caught up in this year, there's no doubt in my mind we can work our way into the top 10."